June 16, 2015

According to the New York Times bestselling authors behindWho: The Method for Hiring, only 10% of leaders are managing at
their full potential at any given time. Using their own extensive research and data
from over 15,000 interviews with leaders in business, medicine, military and
education, leadership advisors Geoff Smart, Randy Street, and Alan Foster have
created a game-changing approach to deliver your team’s best possible results
with Power Score: Your Formula for Leadership Success (Ballantine Hardcover;
on sale June 16, 2015).

Teams, both in the board room and on the
little league field, intuitively know what it feels like to run at full power.
But how can you measure it? Power Score reveals how leaders can
calculate their teams’ PWR (priorities, who, relationships) score and is
a go-to-guide to improving each of the key areas of leadership, giving readers
practical tips to improve their career, their business and ultimately earn more
money for their cause.

A conversation with the authors

So what is this book about?

We provide a simple formula called the
Power Score that enables you and your team to identify ways to improve your
results. When your team achieves better results, you will have a more positive
impact on the world. You will make a bigger difference for your cause, whatever
that might be. And you will enjoy more career success.

My team and I want those things. How do we
calculate our Power Score?

Pull
your team together for a Power Conversation—we provide a how-to template at the
end of the book to use as a reference. Begin the conversation by asking them,
“Are we running at full power?” Listen to what they say. Their observations
will be vague at first, but pay close attention because their comments will be
your first indication of what you can do differently. Then ask them to think
about three things: P, W, and R. Priorities, Who, Relationships.

PWR spells “power.” I get it.

Bingo.
We made the formula spell “power” to make it easy to remember.

Who are you three authors? And why should I
trust you?

We
are Geoff, Randy, and Alan. We are business leaders, bestselling authors, and
social entrepreneurs. We are not academics. We are not retired CEOS, and this
is not a memoir. We are three guys who love
the topic of helping leaders amplify their positive impact on the world. We
are humbled that so many people have read our two previous books, Who and Leadocracy. We work at ghSMART, a leadership consultancy. We have
the privilege to serve as the trusted advisors to leaders who own or run large
institutions. For two decades, these leaders have called ghSMART to help them
hire and develop talented teams and achieve results.

Okay, so you seem to know what you are talking
about. But does the PWR Score actually work? How much more successful are the
leaders who run their teams at full power?

Leaders who run their teams at full
power are twice as likely to have succeeded in their careers as the average
leader.

Are you making that up?

Nope. Every number in this book comes from our
15,000 assessments that cover leaders’ entire educational and career histories,
including jobs held, key accomplishments, failures, strengths, weaknesses, relationships
that worked and didn’t work, leadership styles, thought patters, personality
traits, and motivations. We interviewed CEOs, senior executives, nonprofit
leaders, military generals, school principals, and head surgeons, among others.
All told, we collected more than 600 data points per person—more than 9 million
data points in all.

POWER SCORE is a universal framework for leadership. The key is to have the
right priorities, the right people on your team, and the right relationships
that achieve results. You have to have all three working in unison if you want
to run your team at full power. Leadership is like a triathlon. Where do you
think you will end up if you can’t swim?

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

GEOFF SMART is Chairman & Founder of ghSMART, an advisory
firm that helps leaders who own or run large institutions to run at full power.
He is author of two New York Times bestselling books, Who and Leadocracy.
Geoff earned a B.A. in Economics with Honors from Northwestern University, an
M.A., and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Claremont Graduate University, where he
was mentored by Peter F. Drucker. RANDY
STREET is Managing Partner of ghSMART and is coauthor of Who.
He is a leadership advisor to boards and CEOS, and an internationally-acclaimed
public speaker who earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in
Mechanical Engineering from Rice University. ALAN FOSTER is a Consultant
at ghSMART, where he helps leaders amplify their positive impact on the world
as a leadership advisor, social entrepreneur, and public speaker. Alan
graduated with honors in Economics from Cambridge University in the UK and
earned his MBA from INSEAD in France and his Masters in Applied Positive
Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

About Blyth Meier

Blyth Meier joined us to lead our marketing department in 2015 after doing that work for the Milwaukee Film Festival for the previous five years. While she made good use her filmmaking degree at that job, here she returns to her first love—books. As an undergraduate English major at the University of North Dakota, Blyth’s favorite time of year was the annual Writers Conference, which brought many of her soon-to-be favorite authors to the remote Northern Prairie: Peter Matthiessen, August Wilson, Toi Derricotte, Mark Doty, Natasha Trethewey, and Terry Tempest Williams. Blyth lives in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, where she gardens, cooks, takes photographs, makes films, and participates in a yearly 24-hour bike race. At 800-CEO-READ, she runs our social media accounts, writes for In the Books, and is the keeper of all our marketing spreadsheets.